Herbert Hoover

How we placed it

Judgment calls

Positions summarize typical stances from primary sources and reference works. Where an axis is genuinely contested, the reasoning is below.

Ownership

Defended private enterprise and individualism, set out in his 1922 book American Individualism.

Markets

Preferred voluntary cooperation among businesses to direct regulation, but created the government-run Reconstruction Finance Corporation to lend to banks and firms; scored mildly toward free markets.

Welfare

Resisted direct federal relief to individuals, relying on voluntary efforts, public works and loans to the states; scored toward self-reliance.

Authority

Worked through commissions, Congress and voluntary agreements rather than expanded executive power.

Security

Enforced Prohibition and ordered the removal of Bonus Army marchers from federal buildings in 1932, though the Army exceeded his instructions; he had supported their right to demonstrate.

Structure

Channeled what direct relief he accepted through state governments, in line with his preference for local responsibility.

Morality

No documented position on family or social norms in the sources used here; left null.

Religion

A Quaker who left no documented program on religion in public life in the sources used here; left null.

Technology

An engineer who promoted efficiency and large public works such as the Boulder Canyon project, later named Hoover Dam.

Culture

His administration's response to the Depression included the Mexican Repatriation, the removal of hundreds of thousands of people of Mexican descent, many of them U.S. citizens.

Trade

Signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, which raised rates on agricultural and industrial imports, despite his earlier doubts about high tariffs.

Foreign policy

Pursued naval disarmament, proposed a moratorium on war debts in 1931 and promised less U.S. military interference in Latin America.